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To Americans, the rules of citizenship can seem simple: You're a member of this nation either by birth or naturalization. But centuries of debate over how citizenship can be acquired and lost show that the concept is not simple at all. This is especially true of birthright citizenship, the rule that confers membership on children born here regardless of whether their parents are in the country legally. Until the Civil War — and the Dred Scott decision that helped precipitate it by denying citizenship even to former slaves in free territory — the United States managed to finesse a definition of national citizenship. The founders and their descendants avoided the hard...

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To Americans, the rules of citizenship can seem simple: You're a member of this nation either by birth or naturalization.
But centuries of debate over how citizenship can be acquired and lost show that the concept is not simple at all. This is especially...

Glenview's annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service is this year at the Glenview Community Church, 1000 Elm Street, Glenview, Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at 7:30 pm.
Bringing together people of different faiths and beliefs, and hosted by different...

All of a sudden this week, the beautiful global game of soccer joined long-distance trains and organic vegetables as bugaboos of the heat-seeking, right-wing commentariat. With new popularity comes competing narratives. Still, this one was notably weird....

Posted by College of Lake County Public Relations, Community Contributor

An archeological field study trip to Costa Rica, led by Dr. Scott Palumbo, a College of Lake County anthropology instructor, recently took 15 students to Bolas, Costa Rica, an area considered one of the most important pre-Columbian sites in southern...

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host seen by some as a stalwart for American values and by others as a pox on Western civilization, has come out with the first in a series of time-travel novels aimed at teaching young people about American history....

If Abraham Lincoln had exercised better judgment in 1863 when he fixed the date for Thanksgiving, we'd have celebrated last month, this would be an ordinary week and I'd be writing happily on another topic. Instead, Lincoln settled on late ...

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday: I believe that we have misjudged the Arab Spring and the Arab Revolutions. And I will call it "The Arab Revolutions." And looking at it from a historian's standpoint, ...

By Jessica Reynolds Part of my job is to listen to readers' complaints about content published in the Tribune's opinion section. And I do listen, for the first 10 minutes or so. The other day a reader, who will go ...

Burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese, author of "Burlesque and the Art of the Teese" (It Books), recently gave Britain's Daily Mail a "master class in seduction." Some of the tips are a little hard to take seriously at first, but if you...

Do your co-workers eat garlic pasta, fried fish or raw onions at their desks?
Are you ready to get on your high horse and tell them exactly what you think of their oh-so-fragrant lunches?
You might want to slow down there, pardner.
An insensitive...

Should we attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to eliminate "birthright citizenship," the idea that any baby born within our borders is automatically deemed a citizen? Should we make a similar effort to enshrine the one-man/one-woman concept of marriage as..

The past is so much more present if you can wear it. Stylish, too, judging by the neat cut of the century-old coat now being modeled for us by 7-year-old Aidan Baker of Decatur. The brownish/black mix wool coat, all clean lines and topped with a black...

SHALER, Pa. When his father passed away in October, Andrew Weckman received an intriguing offer from the funeral director handling the arrangements. The owner of Perman Funeral Home, located outside Pittsburgh, suggested Weckman harvest and store...

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. - "Provincetown?" a Boston friend, who only summers on tony Nantucket, sniffed when I mentioned my plan to visit the artist colony and fishing port at the tip of Cape Cod. "You're not going to Provincetown. It's so...

Halifax, Canada — A cold wind ripped through Fairview Lawn Cemetery. Then came the frigid rain. In a minute, I was thinking, the headstones will be shivering."Now," said Blair Beed, my guide, "imagine how it would have been in those...

Ken Burns, whose landmark documentary on the Civil War established him as one of its quintessential authorities, thinks there's no better way to get a sense of the Civil War than to visit its battlefields, museums and national parks. "When we go...

Russell Means, who gained international notoriety as one of the leaders of the 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973 and continued to be an outspoken champion of American Indian rights after launching a career as an actor in...

Even as they turn 100, Washington's cherry trees in full bloom remain as wondrously beautiful as ever — which explains why more than a million people are expected to come gaze at them over the next five weeks.
D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival,...